


The Reporter

by enthusiasmgirl



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, Organized Crime, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 08:28:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4514946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enthusiasmgirl/pseuds/enthusiasmgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ben Urich followed a story wherever it led him. It led him to the Murdock family, who in turn led him to more stories, and eventually his downfall. </p><p>Matt remembers the man who was always there for him in ways he didn't even know he needed, and who taught him what saving the city looked like.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fix

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this story came out of a few places. 
> 
> It fills a prompt on the Daredevil Kink Meme. Which is my own, but whatever. I wanted to write it. And once again I didn't even fill my own damned prompt as I originally conceived it. :S
> 
> That prompt is [here](http://daredevilkink.dreamwidth.org/1742.html?thread=3355854#cmt3355854) and goes as follows:
> 
> _What if at his wake, there's a scrapbook or pinned up copies of all of his best reporting over the years, and Karen realizes as she looks through it that he wrote several stories on Matt, basically starting with the story of the kid blinded by the accident, up through his dad's murder, his dad's murder investigation, etc. even including human interest pieces following up on Matt starting college, etc. Maybe Ben even had a hand in jailing the mob guys who killed Matt's dad or fixed his fights._
> 
> _And she realizes that Matt must have known Ben for YEARS! They did not just meet when Karen went to him following the Union Allied story. Cue Karen talking to Matt about it and him sharing Ben stories with her about what a great reporter he was, and Matt just losing it completely thinking about his death at Fisk's hands._
> 
> The other reason I wrote this fic is in response to [this conversation happening on my Tumblr. ](http://enthusiasmgirl.tumblr.com/post/125969926099/i-have-a-daredevil-fandom-issue)
> 
> I decided that I felt like a hypocrite for not having written a fic about Ben Urich myself, and decided to be the change I want to see.
> 
> So I hope everyone enjoys this and that it tugs at your heartstrings the way it did mine as I wrote it. It is unbeta'd so please be kind, and also I wrote it pretty quickly just to get it out there. So just keep that in mind. :D

**October, 1992**

The gym was packed, crowded with sweaty, riled up spectators, all of them gathered to watch the two men in the ring beat on each other until one of them was too bloody to get back up.

Ben soaked it in, loved the roar of the people and the smell of sweat and cigarette smoke, the fury in the air. His notebook and pen sat in his front shirt pocket, forgotten.

"You like the fights, eh Benny?" asked the man next to him, his New York accent thick with remnants of his Italian heritage.

"I do, Joey," Ben replied. "Curious about you taking me to an Irish fight though? You're not worried one of these guys'll see you with me and pop you later?"

"Nah," said Joey. "They won't do nothing. They're too scared of you now. Everyone knows you took down De Palma. They think you're hooked up with the FBI now, know they'll be on the hook if anything happens to you or any one of your informants."

"That doesn't make me feel any safer," said Ben.

"It shouldn't," Joey said. "But how safe can you be really? After all, there are no sure things in this world, right? A lot of people think that the guy in the ring down there proves that."

"Jack Murdock, yeah? Battlin' Jack?" Ben asked. "I've heard of him. Loses 99% of the time, but is spectacular to watch. Makes a lot of people a lot of money the 1% of the time he gets a win in."

"Yeah," Joey said. "They say the guy don't know when to quit, you know?"

"Yeah I think I know something about that," said Ben, smiling.

Ben watched, enraptured, as the lean, determined fighter in the ring took a flurry of bad hits from his opponent, his face swelling and blood dripping down his chin. But he didn't go down. It was like there were imaginary supporters there with him keeping him up, like he couldn't go down if he wanted to. He swayed on his feet and Ben was sure that he was done.

Then, out of nowhere, a returning blast of lightning fast punches hit his opponent and took the other man by surprise, Murdock wailing on him with the primal intent of a murderer in his eyes, a devil unleashed.

His opponent looked overwhelmed. Scared. But he still got one last punch in, right to Murdock's jaw. And with that, Murdock was finished, his opponent panting and gasping above him still trying to get his bearings again.

The crowd screamed and booed and hissed, pounding their feet on the floorboards. The noise was deafening. As it quieted down and the crowd began to disperse, Joey turned back to Ben. "He's something, ain't he?" They made their way through the crowd to the door.

"He is," said Ben.

"Yeah, he's a damned good fighter," said Joey. "Better actor, though. That was a hell of a dive."

Ben frowned, disappointed. "That was a fix?" he asked.

"Was it ever," Joey replied. "Boyle and his boys love Murdock. He always makes it look nice and real. And when they let him win one, they all make a mint."

"I don't believe you," Ben said, shaking his head. "He doesn't seem like the type to go along with a scheme like that," Ben said, "You could see it in the ring, the passion and the rage. You can't fake that."

"You can if you got a little kid waiting for you at home and no mother to take care of him or put food on the table," Joey said. "He may look hard, but everyone knows where his soft spot is. Around here, that's how they get you. Fucking Irish. Do you see my point though, Benny?"

"I'm not sure if I do, Joey," Ben replied.

"There's no sure things unless you've rigged the game," Joey said. "Once you've done that, the whole world belongs to you. That's who you're dealing with. So no, you ain't safe. But you're in it now. Me too. You sure you don't want to get out of town?"

Ben just smiled sadly as they headed to the door. "I'm sure," he said, noticing the stares coming from the other people leaving the building as they passed him and knowing that he was being carefully watched. He pulled his notebook out of his pocket. It was easy to enjoy the fight, but he needed to remember the monsters he was dealing with.


	2. The Boy Hero

**February, 1994**

Ben winced as he took a sip of his coffee, noting the time of the wall. Three in the morning, and here he was still in the office, drinking what tasted like dirt off the street just to keep himself going. He wasn't the only one. The clickity clack of typewriters, echoing rings of telephones and a low level of chatter permeated the atmosphere in the large office, everyone intent on breaking the next big story, on getting the paper out the next morning.

"Hey Ben," a voice said. It was the only man at the paper he considered a friend, Ellison, hard at work on a late-breaking piece about Clinton's latest scandal. "The boss man wants to see you," he was told.

"Now? At this time of night?" Ben asked.

"You know him," Ellison said, "always on our asses. You know he's probably gonna kill the real estate piece, right? Asshole."

Ben smiled weakly, but knew Ellison was probably right. Their new boss wasn't a fan of Ben's hard-hitting brand of investigative journalism. He walked into the man's office, expecting a fight but knowing he was too tired to give him much of one.

"Urich," the editor said. "Sit down." Ben sat.

"You know what this about?" he was asked.

"You want to kill the real estate piece," Ben said.

"I want to kill the real estate piece," his boss repeated. "It's just not good enough. Not front page material, but too thinky for the back pages. It's not gonna sell, and so it's gotta go."

"So what?" Ben asked. "You want me to write some fluff?"

"That'd be nice, yes!" the man told him. "Something light, and that tugs at the heartstrings. There's room at the back of this Sunday's paper and I know you're fast. And good."

"I don't do human interest stories," said Ben. "I cover the city!"

"People are the city!" said the editor. "They live in it, and they buy our papers, and they want to see stories about themselves in it's pages. If you're as good as you seem to think you are, you should be able to take that and run with it. Unless you don't think you're capable, in which case maybe you're not the right fit at this paper."

Ben sighed. "Alright," he said. He thought for a moment. "I'll tell you what. I've got a human interest story for you. It's perfect for this."

"Sounds like music to my ears," his boss said. "What's the story?"

"A kid down in Hell's Kitchen. His dad's well-known in the neighborhood, he's a boxer, a good one. Anyway, the kid is walking down the street and sees an old man about to be hit by a car. Pushes him out the way and is blinded for his trouble. A real hero."

"Huh," said his editor, "Not bad, Urich. It's got a cute kid. Old man in trouble. I like it. It could work."

"Oh no," Ben said, "it could do more than work. I can write a version of this story that'll knock your socks off. Have all the housewives and grannies who read our paper sniffling. Get advocates in the community on our side thinking that we speak for the downtrodden. I could write a version of this worthy of the goddamned Pulitzer prize! But if I do, you gotta give me something. You gotta run the real estate piece."

His boss sighed a long-suffering sigh that Ben was very familiar with. He knew he'd won. "A Pulitzer prize, huh?" he was asked.

"Damn right," Ben replied.

"Fine. But it better be good." Ben knew it would be.

* * *

"Can I help you?" the man Ben knew as Battlin' Jack asked when he opened his front door.

"Mr. Murdock? I'm Ben Urich, with the New York Bulletin?" Ben told him.

"The Bulletin?" Jack asked. "What's this about?"

"I'm interested on writing a piece about your son's accident," Ben said. "Would it be okay if I came in?"

"I don't know if that's a good idea," Jack said. "You're really a reporter?"

"I am," Ben said.

"What do you want to write about Matty for?" Jack asked. "I mean, I figured if that was gonna happen, it would have happened right after the accident. Why now?"

"Did nobody else speak to you already?" Ben asked, curious.

"No," Jack said. "Nobody. Come on in," he opened the door wider to allow Ben entry into his home.

"I suppose a lot of people must have just not thought it was a big enough story," Ben said.

"But you do?" Jack asked.

"Your son lost his sight saving a poor old man by pushing him out of the way of a speeding truck, Mr. Murdock. That's incredibly brave. He's a hero as far as I'm concerned," Ben said sincerely.

"Yeah," said Jack, smiling sadly. "He is."

They sat at the tiny dining room table. "Is you son home, Mr. Murdock? I'd like to interview him, if it's possible."

"No," said Jack. "He's with his therapist. He's there a lot these days."

Ben felt uncomfortable, since Jack was clearly upset thinking about what happened to his son. "It must be difficult," he said. He remembered what Joey had told him once, about Jack's son being his soft spot. He couldn't imagine how vulnerable the man must feel now.

"Yeah," said Jack, his voice trembling. "Yeah, it is."

"Did you have insurance?" Ben asked.

"No," said Jack. "I didn't think... it was so expensive. But the government's been helpful. It's a lot of paperwork. A lot of struggling to be acknowledged, you know? And even then..."

"It's not enough," Ben filled in. "Did the doctors tell you anything about the substance that blinded your son? It wasn't the truck hitting him that caused the blindness, am I correct?"

"No," said Jack. "It wasn't. It was some kinda chemical. I don't know much more about it than that."

"You never looked into suing the company?" Ben asked. "Or holding the truck driver liable?"

"No," said Jack. "Too much work. I barely have enough money to keep a roof over my head. Paying a lawyer or investigator to look into things is way beyond what I'm thinking about, Mr. Urich. What is this really about?"

"It's about your son," Ben said. "Just like I said. How's he doing?"

"Good," Jack replied. "Better than I could ever have asked for. He's a fighter."

"Just like his old man," Ben said. "I've seen you fight. Can't keep a Murdock down, can you?"

Jack smiled, and put on a pot of coffee.

* * *

True to his word, Ben's piece was inspired. It didn't win the Pulitzer, but it did sell papers. A lot of papers, as the people of Hell's Kitchen ate up the story up. Ben hunted down the old man who was saved, and filled the article with his gratitude and account of that fateful day. He painted a picture of Battlin' Jack, the down on his luck boxer and plucky single father doing his best, and of his son Matthew, a quiet, intelligent boy bound for great things until one day he was called on to be a hero and lose everything. He communicated to the people of the city that here was someone who deserved a break. And so the community gave him one. Enough of one to warrant a follow-up article chronicling the fundraising done to assist the boy's father with paying off the substantial medical bills he'd amassed, and the day the mayor himself gave Matt Murdock the key to the city.

And Ben got his real estate piece in print. It led to three arrests for embezzlement and fraud.

And later, much later, Ben did win a Pulitzer. And a scar on his back from a bullet that came very close to hitting his spine, a contracted hit. A hit placed for a story about a truck transporting illicit toxic waste without the proper permits or safeties in place down an ordinary New York City street that eventually evolved into a corporate scandal that took down a billion dollar company and three senators.

The settlement money would come much too late to stop the events that happened next.


	3. The Obituary

**May, 1995**

Ben stood in the cemetery, solemn, as the priest spoke and the casket was lowered into the ground slowly.

Next to him, Doris made an upset noise. "That poor boy," she said. "I can't even imagine what he must be going through right now."

Ben let his eyes wander over to the place they had been avoiding, the sight of a small, blind boy weeping openly at the graveside, his cane digging into the grass in front of him. He thought about what the police had told him when he had investigated Jack Murdock's death. About how Matt had somehow made his way past the police tape to kneel by his father's side, about how the police had been forced to drag him away kicking and screaming. He had been touching his father's face, unable to see the devastation with his own eyes.

Ben thought back over the things his mob contacts had told him. Remembered again Joey's warning that nobody was safe. He'd been at the Creel fight. He'd seen the look on Jack's face as he'd taken his opponent down. He knew the odds on that fight, and he had heard the word on the street surrounding it. If Jack did what Ben suspected he had, then Ben wasn't surprised that he was standing at the man's funeral. Only that the man's thoughts of his son hadn't been enough to stop him in the end.

As he reflected on the tragedy, he noticed that with the casket now lowered, Matt was making his way towards them. The others in attendance looked as though they all wanted to comfort him, to surround him, but they also all were avoiding him like he was made of glass, afraid to approach him.

Slowly, Ben watched him approach, cane moving back and forth in front of him and people parting to allow him room.

Ben was surprised when the boy reached them and stopped.

"Mr... Mr. Urich?" Matt asked, tentatively.

"How did you know?" Ben asked in return.

"I heard your wife talking to you," Matt replied. "My dad didn't know any other Bens."

"I'm sorry for you loss," Ben said.

Matt just nodded, then looked up towards him, sunglasses obscuring his eyes so that Ben had a hard time reading his expression.

"I just wanted to thank you," Matt said.

"That story benefited me as much as you, kid," Ben said. "And you deserved the attention for what you did, saving that man's life."

"No," said Matt, "that's not what I meant. I'm thanking you for the obituary."

Doris looked at him. "You didn't tell me you wrote Jack's obituary," she said, pride in her voice.

"It was beautiful," Matt said. "A full page. I asked one of the nuns to read it to me. It even made her cry."

"Yeah, well your dad deserved to be remembered," said Ben. "He was a great fighter, and an even better man. And I know he loved you more than anything. It's a shame what happened to him."

They stood there together, in silence and remembrance, until a nun finally came to lead Matt away.

As he and Doris walked back towards their car, Ben reflected on everything he had managed to accomplish in his career so far. On all the lives that his own had intersected with, all the good he had done.

And he resolved that Jack Murdock's death would have meaning. He would make sure that it did. It was time for him to call in favors that he had been owed for a long time.

* * *

It took months. Months of persistent, frustrated arguments with his editor. Months of sleepless nights, and long conversations dealing with FBI bureaucracy. Months in which he'd had to have his wife moved into witness protection even though he refused to go, refused to be swayed from his path. But finally, thousands of words typed and dozens of columns later, the day came when the Irish mob fell in Hell's Kitchen. When all of it's members sat in jail cells. When Ben Urich stood in a courtroom and watched the man who confessed to shooting Jack Murdock as part of a plea agreement receive his sentence.

It should have been vindicating. A triumph. But Ben could only feel sad for all of the people like Matt. The people who had lost loved ones, who had seen their businesses or homes destroyed, because of the mob's influence. There were a lot of people who weren't around to celebrate with him.

But he had won, in the end. The game was no longer quite as rigged. Hell's Kitchen was that much safer. For now.


	4. Graduation

**October, 2014**

When Matt took the stage to accept his law degree, cane waving in front of him and trying not to trip over his own robe due to his nerves, he was surprised to hear thunderous applause greet his ears. Wild hooting and hollering. He sensed people standing in their seats.

The Nelsons. He should have figured. Foggy's family had taken in him like one of their own years ago. It made him grin and tear up slightly as he accepted the piece of paper and returned to his seat, trembling.

But there was someone else. Too many people clapping, too many people standing. Matt realized as he sat back down that someone else was there.

Afterwards, once he finally managed to extricate himself from one of Foggy's sister's epic hugs, he heard a familiar voice greet him. One he hadn't heard since he was a child.

"Mr. Murdock," the voice said, deep and comforting.

"Mr. Urich," Matt replied, confused. "What are you doing here?"

"Follow-up piece," Ben said. "You know, to add to the ongoing Murdock saga chronicled down at my paper. Local boy hero grows up, makes good. It makes for heartwarming copy."

Matt blushed. "You don't have to do that," he said. "You've done so much already."

"Not nearly enough," said Ben. "Besides, I already told you I'm not doing it for you. A story's a story. I go where they lead me."

"Right," said Matt. "Of course."

They stood there for a moment awkwardly, until Matt finally broke the silence by pulling Ben into a hug.

"Your dad would've been so proud of you today, son," Ben whispered into his ear. "You know that, right?"

"Yeah," Matt sobbed into his shoulder, before pulling away and composing himself, laughing. "I have to go," he said, gesturing towards Foggy and his family. "But I look forward to having someone read me your article."

Ben laughed gently. "I'll make sure you get sent a copy," he said. "Translated into braille so you can read it yourself."

When Matt walked back over to join Foggy, his friend looked at him funny. "Who was that?" Foggy asked.

"A friend," Matt said, smiling.


	5. The Last Story

**April, 2015**

Matt hadn't cried at the funeral. Matt hadn't cried since he heard the news. It seemed unbelievable to him, like he would wake up one morning and it would never have happened.

How could Ben Urich be dead? The man had survived so much. He had put himself in harm's way so many times, written so many stories that should never have been allowed to be published.

And Fisk had killed him. Matt had gotten him killed. It didn't seem real.

It wasn't until he returned to the office for the first time since Nobu's attack, felt the sharp corners and raised letters of the Nelson and Murdock sign sitting in a trashcan, that he started to realize how out of control things had gotten. How real things actually were.

He heard Karen put something down on the desk. Heavy. It was a book. It smelled of newspaper ink and rotting paper.

"What's that?" he asked.

She sniffled and swept away tears with her fingers. "Doris gave it to me," she said. "Said that he would have wanted us to have it."

"Us?" Matt asked. "Not you?"

"She specified. You and Matthew, she said," Karen explained. "She thanked us for coming."

"What's in it?" Matt asked.

"I haven't looked," Karen said.

Matt opened it gently, and ran his fingers over the first page. He could tell that Karen was about to say something to stop him but decided against it.

It was a scrapbook. He could tell by the age of the paper, how it felt under his fingers. Could feel the raised ink enough to read it if he concentrated hard enough. Stories Ben had written over the years, glued in like keepsakes.

"It's a scrapbook," Karen explained.

"I know," Matt said, not explaining how.

Karen moved in to stand behind him and look over his shoulder. "It's articles that Ben wrote over the years. This one's about a little boy in Hell's Kitchen who..." she trailed off as she realized who the article was about. "Oh," she said.

"Yeah," Matt said.

"I didn't read that one before, when I was looking him up," Karen said. "I mean, I read the headline but I was so focused on the investigative stuff. I'm sorry, Matt," she said. "I didn't know."

"It's okay, Karen," Matt said. But it wasn't.

"Did you read his work on the mob?" Matt asked. He flipped through the pages of the scrapbook, feeling each page. He could feel the tears finally beginning to fall.

"Yeah," Karen said. "It was impressive. He dismantled them so thoroughly."

"That story helped put the man who killed my father away," Matt said. "Did you know that?"

"No," Karen said softly. "No, I didn't."

"And the toxic chemical scandal?" Matt said. "Did you know that he only started investigating that story because of me. Because of my accident. He wanted to know why a truck full of unsafe chemicals had even been driving through Hell's Kitchen. Because of him, I got a settlement that helped me go to Columbia after my dad's inheritance ran out. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him."

"He was a good man," Karen said.

"No," said Matt angrily, slamming his fist down on the desk so hard he bruised his knuckles and dented the wood. He could sense Karen back away, afraid of him. "He was the best man, Karen. He was the only person I ever met who was willing to sacrifice everything to make things right. Who cared about this city and this neighborhood enough to go out and do something about it. He was a hero. And now..." Matt choked on his own sobs. "He's dead. Because of me. Oh, God, Karen I killed him!" He collapsed to the floor and lost it, only the desk supporting his weight as he sat there immersed in his grief.

He barely noticed Karen leave. Barely registered the sound of her own sobbing in the other room. He was alone.

* * *

Later, when he finally himself, Matt sat at the desk and focused on that scrapbook. Went through every page. Read every article. He was touched to realized that the articles Ben had written on him, the obituary he had written for his dad, were all there, kept and treasured as some of the proudest moments of the man's career.

He realized that the only thing he could do to move forward would be to take the lessons that Ben taught him and apply them. Somebody needed to defend the streets of Hell's Kitchen, to ensure that people like Fisk were held accountable, that the game wasn't rigged to keep those who were disadvantaged at the bottom of the heap. But he didn't have the right to be judge, jury and executioner. He needed to be persistent and smart, and stay focused. But mostly, he needed to be the good man that he knew Ben Urich died believing him to be.

He needed to be better.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this story, then please note that I am running the Daredevil Minor Character Fic Fest!
> 
> This challenge is open until September 1, 2015 and is designed to encourage people to write about minor characters in the Daredevil universe including Ben! More details [here](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/DD_Minor_Character_Ficfest/profile).


End file.
